To provide a timeline of events today is Friday the 11th of August but for this story of mine we'll go back to late July.
In the week leading up to our July 22nd game, I trained as normal in preparation for the most important game of the year up until then where we were to tackle the 2nd placed team on their home deck (we were sitting in 4th and a game ahead of 5th I think).
In my last post "How Speed Can Win Games" I described a sprinting act of mine where I found speed I been able to find since the start of the season.
That was good.
The negative downside is that when you perform at a level you haven't ever done, or haven't done for some time, it takes it's toll on the body - a huge toll.
The greater the output, the greater the affect to homestasis (your personal "baseline") and thus the greater recovery is required to recover from the extreme stimulus.
There was actually another instance were I burst away from a apck at great speed so I was 'on" for various periods of that game meaning not only did I hit speeds I hadn't done for some time, but I did it repeatedly.
As my need for recovery was greater then normal, my immunity was decreased slightly.
Going to bed Sunday night, I felt a little tickle in the throat but thought nothing of it until waking up Monday and I was gone - a head cold was here.
This is what even slightly low immunity can do - if my immunity was fine then these symptoms would have been beaten off before they could do anything but because of my increased output 2 days prior, I was a little unprepared.
Battling on as I do, I did my regular upper body rep session Monday morning but left out my glute circuit later in the day for a nap instead.
Waking up Tuesday I was still full of head cold but apart from that, I was sleeping alright and energy was fine so come late Tuesday afternoon, I went and did my usual sprint session as planned.
Velocity wise my times weren't too bad really considering I was probably not quite fully recovered from Saturday plus the head cold.
Now the shit bit.
Putting the shopping away I carried a bag weighing less then a kilogram to the cupboard to put away when one of the two straps snapped.
The wight of the bag dropping to 1 side shifted my weight ever so slightly - it didn't jolt at all if you were looking at me - but I felt a light twinge in the lower back (my hot spot).
I stood up and felt it continuing to twinge but didn't think much of it and laid on the couch for TV time and headed to bed as normal.
Waking in the morning (now Wednesday) was a completely different story - I was done, I could barely move.
I hobbled to work and back where anything upright was a battle of the highest order.
On the drive in while going over the West Gate with everyone else in Melbourne at 6am on a weekday, I sneezed and by god it hurt like nothing else in my back, and my legs actually lost function for a second or two.
My immunity was now at an all time low!
Not only was I fighting a head cold, but now there was back pain thrown on top of it.
I knew there wasn't any injury to my back, my body was literally on the edge after Saturday footy with unprecedented output, a head cold, Tuesday sprints - all things I've done every week but it was a shopping back handle that got me - simply ridiculous.
A good indication of well being is you resting heart rate so here's mine for that time period:
Sat - 62
Sun - 67
Mon - 60
Tue - 65
Wed - 70
Thu - 63
As you can see I might have had silent head cold symptoms even before playing the game Saturday as my average resting heart rate is mid to high 50's.
The crucial part here is knowing that my back injury was not from anything I did before hand - not from playing, not from training, not from sprinting - it was from the state my body was in.
In hind site, the sprints took me over the edge and if I had not done them, then I might not of had the back blow out.
The double edges sword here is that the head cold or low back episode on it's own, would have fully recovered in 3- 5 days and I'd be fine for the game the following Saturday.
Unfortunately, you pout these 2 together and it's a battle. Try saving for a car and a mortgage at the same time and see how you go - there's only so much cash to go around, plus you still need to eat.
The same holds for regeneration and recovery. I was improving on both very slowly which meant they both hung around far longer then I wanted them to.
I actually had to miss the next game, only 3rd game missed since my comeback 6 or so years ago in my early 30's so I'm extremely resilient but there was no way I could go that day.
Teammates were making fun of my hunched over posture and the comments of "too old' were plentiful (I'm almost 39).
Fast forward to Thursday (8 days ago) and it was the first time I could run since the back episode 10 days ago, and it was proppy at best.
I did 2 sets of 3mins that wasn't too bad, but not great - I didn't approach anything near a sprint, no could I.
I pulled out of last Saturday's game Thursday night and looked forward to this week.
Saturday morning I awoke to a text from the coach that a teammate had pulled out this morning and could I suit up.
The running session had done good things to my back (it had during previous bouts of low back pain too actually) so I was in, even though I was still a bit stiff and hadn't sprinted yet.
I played the whole game except for the last half of the last quarter when the result was done for (we lost) but I was able to do most of the things I normally do, at close to top speed. My physical and mental prep was way off though and that hindered me a fair bit and I didn't get much of it in the end.
Alas yet again, the game was the best thing I could have done because and here's the takeaway from all of this.
We've all had injuries that come from nowhere for no real reason and what we normally do is cease all activity in the hope it all clears up with rest.
Rest can help but what's happened is that there was some form of bad input put into your system that causes the injury in the first place and it just sits there as you do nothing - you've given it no reason to leave.
What you need to do is out in plenty of positive input to override the bad input to change the way your nervous system perceives the episode.
All through the rehab process I was doing something everyday, even if it was simple mobility and/or glute activation drills, to provide this positive input.
I knew that I needed my immunity to improve before the pain and head cold would go, but in the meantime I was going to do what I could as doing nothing does nothing.
Waking up Sunday (Aug 6th) was the best I'd felt since the initial game on July 22nd and I'm all good to go for this weekend too at near 100%.
So the takeaways are:
- Not all pain is an injury
- Extreme mental and/or physical stress causes bad things to happen if you keep pushing the envelope
- A single bout of negative input can undo far more bouts of positive input
- The positive input doesn't even need to be specific to the pain you have meaning if you have back pain, you can do positive stuff for other parts of the body and that can do the trick.
- When in pain, avoid painful movements where possible as that's reiterating the initial negative input that causes the pain in the first place.
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